On many occasions, you must have been startled to see newspaper headlines or sombre-faced TV reporters announcing that in this country, X millions of children live in poverty. [It always has to be children of course, as this tugs more at the heart strings.]It is like that other impossibility, the 'fact' of better exam results every year. It is all down to where the line for cut-off points is drawn and more importantly - who draws it.
That Labour has seen results improve every single year is a rank impossibility - I dread to calculate what the odds would be against that happening in real life where the variables are so few. Objectively of course, results are plummeting. The expression today is 'spin'. I call it lies and deceit.
Where poverty is concerned, Labour needs large amounts of the population dependent on benefits as this group then has a vested interest in returning a Labour government. It is simple, devious, calculated and deeply dishonest. It is an abomination to use such cynical tactics when people in their millions are enduring Third World penury and hardship.
When Blair came to power he promised to 'think the unthinkable' and even put the honest Frank Field in charge of a paper exercise to target benefits only to the needy. Of course, he had forgotten that Frank is a man of integrity - an understandable error in today's Labour movement - and of course, he decided to do the job properly. There was only one possible outcome; he was sacked.
What of genuine poverty, then as this piece has not discussed it? - It is just not relevant to Labour arguments.
More on this topic in a later posting.
